Dallas attorney Jamey Newberg has been covering the Texas Rangers, from the big club down through the entire farm system, since 1998. His website can be found at www.newbergreport.com.

Projections, comps, and trade ideas: A topic dump.

You all came up with
a ton of great suggestions for report topics.Can’t get to nearly all of them, but let’s hit on a few.

What happens to the bench now that Khalil
Greene is out of the picture? Can’t be answered yet.But the Rangers have said the utility infield
job will be won internally (Felipe Lopez?Really?Why would he ever sign here,
when the job of backing up Elvis Andrus, Michael Young, and Ian Kinsler
promises so little opportunity?), and Esteban German isn’t a very good
shortstop, so that means the competition at this point features Joaquin Arias
and Ray Olmedo.If Arias’s shoulder can
hold up on the left side of the infield, the job should be his.As for the other infield spot, preferably a
right-handed bat that can play both corners?I give Matt Brown a one-in-three shot, Mike Lowell twice that.Another possibility: either infield spot on the
bench could be manned by a player in someone else’s camp a month from now.Such as Arizona’s Augie Ojeda.

In the age of video scouting and league adjustments,
can Scott Feldman do it again?As long as he commands that filthy cutter, a true
out pitch, you bet.It’s not the kind of
pitch a hitter can sit on and punish when it’s working.Remember, Feldman’s 17-8, 4.08 mark – 17-8,
3.79 as a starter – came in just 31 starts.Given a full year in the rotation, can he win 17 again? Of course.Can he maintain the peripherals?Don’t
see why not.

Compare the 40-man roster to that of the last
Rangers playoff team.Good
one.

Call Sele and Feldman a wash.Burkett was coming off a 5.68 ERA season; I’ll
take Lewis.Loaiza had a 5.90 ERA after
his summer arrival in Texas; Hunter is just as good a bet today as Loaiza was
going into his first full season as a Ranger.Clark or McCarthy?Clark or
Holland?Clark or Harrison?C’mon.

The bullpens aren’t close.Wetteland beats Francisco but every other matchup favors the current
group.

The minor league pitching groups are close, but there’s
greater upside today.

To be fair, there was one non-roster invite at this time in
1999 who promised to make an impact during the season, but there’s one today,
too.This isn’t a hindsight exercise,
though, and anyone who says he expected Jeff Zimmerman (whom Baseball America judged that winter to
be the Rangers’ number 10 prospect) to be anything close to a rookie All-Star
in middle relief is lying, and there’s just as much buzz about 23-year-old
Tanner Scheppers as Camp 2010 gets rolling as there was in February 1999 about the
26-year-old Zimmerman.

The Lee Stevens/Mark McLemore/Royce Clayton/Todd Zeile
infield?Texas is measurably stronger
now at second, shortstop, and third, and similar at first offensively.But Chris Davis has a better chance of outproducing
Stevens than McLemore had to put together a Kinsler-type year (not to mention
Davis’s massive edge defensively), and nobody would take the 29-year-old
Clayton over Andrus.I’d take Young over
Todd Zeile, even discounting the off-the-field factors.Luis Alicea and Jon Shave probably make a stronger
bench case than Greene or Arias plus a non-roster type like Brown or Esteban
German, but Lowell would tilt things the other way.

Outfield and DH: Juan Gonzalez, Rusty Greer, Tom Goodwin, and
Rafael Palmeiro vs. Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, Julio Borbon, and Vladimir Guerrero.There are scenarios in which you can imagine
the current group outplaying the 1999 group, both offensively and defensively,
but you have to give the old guys the edge.Roberto Kelly and David Murphy as fourth outfielders make a pretty good
match.Other big leaguers: Ruben Mateo
and Mike Simms in 1999; Brandon Boggs and Craig Gentry today.You had to give the older crew the decided edge
because of pre-injury Mateo and the 1998 that Simms was coming off of.

Minor league position players: catcher Cesar King, infielders
Kelly Dransfeldt, Shawn Gallagher, and Rob Sasser, and outfielders Mike Zywica
and Ricky Williams (yes, that Ricky Williams) in 1999.Today: Catcher Max Ramirez and no infielders or
outfielders.Off the roster but in camp,
the club now has Justin Smoak, Mitch Moreland, and Chad Tracy, but in 1999 had
Carlos Pena and Mike Lamb.Strong in
both cases.

What Rangers player has the biggest 2010 beta?I’m not surewhich I’d say is
more likely: Scheppers starting and finishing the year with Frisco (remember,
he logged only 19 innings last summer), or closing games in Arlington in September.Surely it will be something between the two
extremes, but the possibilities are all over the map.

You
nailed it coming up with realistic trade ideas for Zack Greinke and Josh
Johnson a year before each of them really broke through.Do it again.OK, in time.I will say this: The odds of making an impact July trade go up this year,
for two reasons: (1) the ownership transition and (2) tougher 40-man roster decisions
this coming November than in any off-season in memory.Among those who will need to be added to the
roster to avoid exposure to next December’s Rule 5 Draft: Moreland, Wilmer
Font, Kasey Kiker, Danny Gutierrez, Engel Beltre, Wilfredo Boscan, and Carlos
Pimentel.

I’ll go ahead and say this: If (when) Kansas City is 20
games out in mid-July, despite a second straight Cy Young-quality season from Greinke,
I’d call the Royals and offer them Holland, Font, Ogando, Moreland, and Engel Beltre
for Greinke and a middle reliever or veteran bench piece (whichever makes more
roster sense at that point).

But that’s just off the top of my head.I’ll work on this idea and expand it to other
trade targets soon.

OK, one more: Smoak, Font, and Kiker for Brandon Webb.

Twist my arm: Poveda and Engel Beltre for (righthander) Chris
Young, or – if the decision is made to move Feliz into the rotation – Harrison,
Font, and Engel Beltre for Heath Bell, who is under control through 2011 (a
year longer than Frankie Francisco is).

Can
Texas commit to Neftali Feliz in the bullpen again without scuttling the idea
of making him a starter eventually?Of
course.See what the Dodgers did with Pedro
Martinez at age 21 in 1993 (after his brief 1992 debut).One difference to think about, though: Los
Angeles was coming off a terrible 1992 season (63-99) and managed to play only
.500 ball in 1993.They were arguably
better able to blueprint Martinez’s development, with little heed paid to the
team’s chances to win, than the Rangers can now.Texas expects to win, and for that reason the
decision on Feliz may have more than just his own development to factor
in.

In other words, even if the Dodgers thought Martinez was one
of their five best rotation options coming out of camp in 1993, they probably
didn’t expect to win and could focus on what was best for the young Martinez’s development
(managing his workload in a bullpen role).If, on March 15, Texas believes Feliz gives it a better chance to win
than the pitchers against whom he’s competing for the fourth or fifth rotation
spot?Trickier.

For
those of us who didn’t get to go to Sherlock’s to meet Chuck Greenberg, is he
going to be another Arte Moreno? Who
does he remind you of?Roger
Staubach.(Apologies to Chuck, a
Steelers guy, if he’s reading this.)Same inspiring mix of humility and command.

Has
Chris Davis ever tried to catch?He has
the footwork and arm to do it.That’s super-interesting.A
little too late in the game to consider that kind of transition (Davis did
catch a little in high school), but wow, that would have been an inspired experiment
years ago.Like Justin Morneau and
Carlos Delgado and Dale Murphy and Mike Sweeney and a bunch of other power
hitters, Davis might not have lasted long behind the plate (to preserve his career
as a run producer), but imagine how valuable he’d have been as a catcher if it
all came together, even for a few years.

After
the Rangers are successful this year, do you fear that we could lose Thad Levine
or A.J. Preller or Scott Servais to other organizations raiding our system?Damn right I do.Cost of being good.

Jarrod
Saltalamacchia seems to be the biggest wild card in the lineup.What do you see happening with him this year?How great would an Anthony Spencer/Mike
Jenkins breakout be?Even if
Saltalamacchia doesn’t quite pull that off, he could still be Clint Hurdle’s
greatest Year One accomplishment.

With
Marlon Byrd gone, who steps up as the vocal leader in the clubhouse?Michael Young is more of a quiet leader, and
Vladdy doesn’t seem to be a rah-rah type, either.Young isn’t as quiet as you think.Yes, he leads primarily by example, but one
offshoot of being more selective with your words is that whenever you speak, it
counts.A lot.

Who
are you most looking forward to seeing in Surprise?Righthanders Beltre and Ogando, outfielder
Miguel Velazquez, and catcher Jorge Alfaro.

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